Email and messaging are very critical aspects of todays networking world. AT the onset it is important to take the following issues while choosing a service provider
1. Establish your usage pattern and the frequency of checking your email
· For heavy users: If you receive or send 50 qualified messages from/to your contacts daily, then you are a heavy email user. (This does not include newsletters and unsolicited mails)
· For medium users: if your mail usage is of an average 50 mails per week
· For light users: if your mail usage is of an average 50 mails per month
2. Ascertaining the need for the mail service
· Personal mail or Official mail or Organisational mail:
3. Criticality of viewing and responding to your messages
· Twice in a day or Twice in a week or Twice in a month
4. What are the possible access points for emails?
· Whether for a web based/POP/IMAP access
Once you establish the need then while choosing email services CHECK on the following points with your mail service provider
1. Paid mail services vs Free mail service providers: Whether it is a paid mail service or a free mail service? If you are very finicky about your email messages then I suggest that you go in for a paid mail service providers. The reason I say so is that there is no liability for the Free mail service providers. Free mail service providers do have a backup and data integrity policy but in case of database corruption there is no legal clause in which you can hold them responsible for any loss of mail. With a paid service mail provider, although has a cost attached to them, the rates are not very high and at least one can approach the consumer courts in case of data loss or disruption of services. Moreover the free mail service providers like yahoo and hotmail are also planning to take their service paid at a future point of time. So it would make sense to avail a paid service, if your messaging needs are critical. I would like to point out the case of Netaddress (usa.net), Chequemail and 123india and hordes others who have abruptly ended their free mail services with a short notice period.
2. Name, reputation /Co location of servers: Who is the vendor who is vending his mail services to you. Does he have a good image and service? Just a routine background check. Check from your friends and take a first hand account of their experiences. It is also important to note that where the mail servers are located, as the mail page loading /access time will affect the speed at which the mail is downloaded. If your mail service providers has his servers in the US then most likely you will be taking more time to download and access as compared to the mail service providers hosting their services out of India.
3. Uptimes/ Availability: What are the promised uptimes by your mail service providers. Free mail service providers seldom go offline without any warning. Therefore check what are the promised availability of the service. I personally use a mail service with a 99.98% uptime/year with a penalty clause for any downtime above the prescribed limits. Anything with 99% uptime should be considered good.
4. Spam protectors & Junk mail blockers: Does the mail service provide you with Spam protection at the mail gateway level ? What does it do to disallow spam entering into your mailbox.? Whether at the mailbox level, does one have access to block senders or block offensive content?
5. Net disk space for your mails: Isnt it obvious? J I am privileged to have 500 MB of diskspace for my official mail account.;) The catch here is that certain mail service provides you with 6 MB amount of disk space but then they also count your Trash box space, which is very unfair. Also you need to note that what is the mail service provider’s policy when you cross your disk space limits. Certain mail services will not start rejecting new mails while others will not.
6. Security, Encryption & Digital signatures: Ok. This one is must for the business users. How does your login and password travel on the Internet? Does it use any kind of message encryption? Ideally this should be done through a secure server. I know of Hushmail.com provides for a 128 bit encryption of the messages and then transmitted on to the mail server. This is over and above your Secure server username and password encryption. Digital signatures are new, but in India they have just started creating an impact. On the Internet digital signatures can be upheld in the court of law for all the business transaction done on email. This is not true if you do it without a digital signature.
7. POP /IMAP Access: whether the mail service provider allows you to connect remotely and fetch in the mails to your Outlook/Eudora/Netscape and other clients. IMAP is a new thing and support for IMAP in India is very poor.
8. Virus Scanner: Please verify that your mail service provides for one at the incoming gateway level and scans all the messages that enter the mailbox. Also check whether the scanning is done when the attachments are uploaded or downloaded to/from the message. Also ask the provider about the virus update policy.
9. Proximity of the Support Desk Availability, Help menu and Upgrades: Support is critical. At times you are stuck with a feature and need to look for help. IN this case the help menus make you sail through. In case of service disruption and other help needed one needs to get to a helpdesk number or email. Upgrades in mail service are rare but the top end providers like Yahoo, Hotmail , Netaddress, AOL upgrade their look and feel, navigation and enrich the features every year.
10. Cost of the service: Finally based on the need parameters and the feature you want you will be quoted a price. Compare it with different vendors and check it out which one is the best VFM.
11. Mail Features: Check out for the following mail features in your mail. Some of them may be critical for some people and some inconsequential for others;)
· HTML composing: whether your mail composing allows for formatting the composed text.
· Message composing in a new window or the same window: This is pretty important for people who have to refer an old email and write a new one at the same time. So the 2 different windows allows you to navigate in both the windows at the same time.
· Email collection: The ability of the service to accumulate mails from other mail accounts and consolidate into your mailbox.
· Advertising and pop-ups: Know before hand what is the mail service providers privacy policy. If it is a free mail service provider then most likely you will be seeing a lot of promotion and advertisement pop-ups in your mailbox.
· Other features: Such as Folder creation, Filters, Search in the email message, Address book, Calender, Task organizer, Vacation reply, Number of attachments allowed, Mail forwarding facility, Email integration with Fax, mobile and phone, Audio and Video mail features
The best for web based and POP access amongst Email vendors: Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Rediffmail, Indiatimes Mail, Netaddress AOL
The best for web based and POP access amongst ISPs: VSNL, NOW-ISP, Satyam, Tatanova